Page 203 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

THE 1860 CAMPAIGN IN SICILY 201

royal palace and Castellammare helped them in this destruction”.
Bourbonists considered Lanza a traitor; but he was simply an incompe-
tent. The way in which the armistice was granted removed all possible suspi-
cions about his behaviour. However, if the island was lost for the Bourbons
this was due mostly to Lanza’s decisions.
He died in 1865.
Landi, also aged seventy, was even more incompetent and fearful than
Lanza, if this could be possible. His correspondence of those days is very
peculiar.
He reported on the battle of Calatafimi and wrote that “our soldiers have
killed the great Commander of the Italians, and have seized their flag, which
now we keep: unfortunately, a piece of our artillery fell off a donkey and has
been seized by the rebels, and this breaks my heart”. He said that the enemy
had “ a great number of troops, I fear an attack on my positions, I will defend
myself as long as I can, but if I do not receive prompt help, I have to say that
th
I do not know how things will go”. Lanza, in his report dated June 27 ,
1860, scolded him harshly for his rushed retreat after Calatafimi.
He, too, was considered a traitor by the Bourbon writers, who also said
that “he had negotiated his treason for 14,000 ducats, and that he had died
of heartbreak in 1863, since he could not collect those thirty pieces of silver,
as Judas did. Landi’s children were forced to invoke Garibaldi’s witness, who,
always loyal even to his enemies, helped to prove that those Bourbon histo-
rians lied and their eccentric brains had produced that calumny” (Luzio).
In Messina, Clary behaved as Lanza had behaved in Palermo; he ordered
Bosco to risk everything, almost as if he wanted to get rid of him, and then
he did nothing to help him and kept 22, 000 men inactive in Messina.
Butta wrote of him: “it is not possible to say whether this general has been
more detrimental than Lanza to the Kingdom; what is certain is that the lat-
ter was responsible for starting the loss of Sicily and the former completed it”.
In short, the Bourbon generals “were not traitors, but they were incredi-
bly incapable and careless, not only of the cause they had to defend, but also
of their own reputations; none of them can truly be exempted” (Còrsi).
Among the senior officers, the German Mechel was a good and loyal offi-
cer, with a reputation of being brave and strong, but his slowness and his
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stubbornness in those days of May 21 -29 th were greatly detrimental to the
royal cause and saved Garibaldi from a very difficult situation. If, despite his